Scott's WeblogThe weblog of an IT pro focusing on cloud computing, Kubernetes, Linux, containers, and networking

Enabling an Apple MBP Wireless Adapter with Fedora 25

In this article, I want to share with you the steps I took to enable wireless networking on an older (mid-2011) 13” MacBook Pro running Fedora 25. This is driven by a continued need to evaluate Fedora 25, as I’ve run into a few potential roadblocks with Ubuntu 16.04 as my primary laptop OS. Using Fedora 25 instead may help resolve some of these issues, which primarily center around corporate collaboration.

First, you’ll want to enable the RPM Fusion repositories. This is pretty well documented on the RPM Fusion web site. This link will take you to the configuration page, which will provide links for graphical setup via your browser as well as CLI commands.

Once the RPM Fusion repositories (both Free and Nonfree) repositories are enabled, then it’s just a matter of installing a few packages:

First, install the “kernel-devel” package appropriate for your current kernel. The command to use is:

sudo dnf install "kernel-devel-uname-r == $(uname -r)"

This could be user error on my part, but I’ve found that it’s necessary to use the full package (including version) instead of just “kernel-devel”. Otherwise, Fedora seems to have a tendency to install the latest package, which may not match the current kernel you’re actually running.

Next, install the “akmods” and “broadcom-wl” packages:

sudo dnf install akmods broadcom-wl

After these packages have been installed, build the kernel modules with sudo akmods. This will take a moment, then it should return you to the terminal prompt after an “OK” message.

Once you reboot, you should have a new network adapter (on my particular MBP, it was identified as “wlp3s0”), and you can join the wireless network of your choice.